100 Women We Love: Class of 2017

Every June, GO compiles a select list of talented tastemakers, influencers and all-around inspirational women who are making their mark on the LGBT community and on the world at large.

Elaine Harley

Photo by Esther Bernal

DJ and activist Elaine Harley has found incorporating her gay and racial identities into her work and social life to be particularly rewarding. As a promoter of women’s events on both coasts, Harley has won awards for her service, including the LGBT Heritage Award by Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council for her political and social outreach in communities of color. Harley spent the last eight years living in Los Angeles working with Evan Wolfson’s Freedom to Marry campaign, where she was also part of a Time Magazine cover story, “How Gay Marriage Won,” as well as a Black Enterprise feature on “the economic inequalities experienced by same-sex unmarried couples compared to different-sex couples who could legally marry.” Now she’s back in New York with her wife and two young children, and runs her own graphic design business, which she enjoys “because it combined her artistic talents with her interests in supporting entrepreneurs.”—TB